In many instances where vehicles are left in areas to which the public have relatively easy access, there exist the dual problems of firstly theft of or from the vehicles, and secondly damage to the vehicles. It is now common to use a so-called "car alarm" in certain vehicles which may be sensitive to an intrusion (using, for instance, an ultrasonic detector) but these have several limitations: (1) due to the high number of false alarms they are often ignored; (2) they are difficult to install and remove quickly from a variety of vehicles; (3) they do not allow for centralised control of a number of such alarms; and (4) they are of little use in areas that are relatively sparsely populated.
There is, therefore, a clear need for an improved vehicle protection system.